Solidarity
by secondrate
Summary: Because everyone's situation effects the way they turn out. John and Wanda, in a bar, wondering why. Jonda. One-shot.


St John liked bars. He also liked alcohol. Alcohol was good. Therefore, by association, bars were good. You could buy alcohol in bars. It all joined up, like a circle. That made sense. Circles were supposed to be the strongest shape of all. That didn't make sense. You tread on a toilet roll, it gets squashed. Can't be very strong. Burned well though, toilet paper. Fire was pretty; it did little dances when he wanted it to. You lit cigarettes with fire. People lit cigarettes in bars. Circles again. Everything kept coming back to bars. And circles. And circles with bars in them. Round and round in little circles.

St John giggles.

* * *

Remy looked down from his barstool at his friend. Crazy _homme_ was lying on his back in the middle of a crowded club, drinking from a bottle of beer and muttering something about toilet paper. 

Shaking his head, Remy turned back to his own drink. John drunk was always funny to watch, but he needed a lot of prodding to do anything that even approached amusing once he got to the muttering stage. You just had to keep feeding him alcohol, get him past the point where he talked philosophy and wait until he started dancing on tables.

John was a reliable drinker; that is to say that you could always rely on him make an ass of himself and give you some good blackmail material. Smirking, Remy knocked back the rest of his beer and ordered another two from the barman. He held one out to the Aussie on the floor, having to wait for a couple of seconds before John could focus enough to grab it.

"Cheers mate." John raised his drink in a semi-salute to his friend and took a gulp.

"_Pas de problème."_

* * *

"What's up with your friend?" 

Remy turned his head, taking in the sight of the young woman with the short, black, red-streaked hair. Recognising her, he nodded in greeting.

"Wanda," he acknowledged, "How's it goin'?"

"Good, thanks. What's up with him?" Wanda repeated, nudging John slightly with her booted foot.

"John's just had a little too much to drink. In't that right _homme_?"

"Shuddup Remy," came the muttered response from the floor, "I'm trying to look up this sheila's skirt."

Remy offered the girl in question an apologetic shrug. "De _fille_ ain't wearing a skirt John."

The Aussie blinked three times in quick succession in realisation. "Oh." His eyes widened suddenly. "Oooh, leather trousers!"

Wanda kicked him, hard, in the shoulder.

"Bloody 'ell," John muttered. He sat up, groped for the edge of the bar with one hand and hauled himself to his feet. "What the fuck was that for?" he asked, pivoting on the spot to face Wanda.

His attacker glared at him. "You know exactly what that was for **Pyro**" She hadn't recognised him at first but once he opened his mouth, recognition had slapped Wanda in the face like a wet haddock. (1)

"No, I really don't," John offered her what he thought of as his 'charming' smile. To Wanda, it looked more drunken and goofy than anything else. "Since when was it illegal to comment on a sheila's choice of clothing? Besides, you've got great legs."

Wanda punched him, in the shoulder, in the same place that she had kicked him earlier. John winced, rubbing the spot, and glared at Wanda. "Could you stop that? Hurts somethin' rotten, it does."

"Call me by my name," replied the Witch, "And I may consider it."

"It would help if I knew it," John shrugged, "You could let me guess though. We'd be here all night though. Fun times for all eh?"

"It's Wanda."

John smirked and leaned back against the bar.

"Well then Wanda," he said, "Buy you a drink?"

* * *

"Me name's John by the way." 

"John? Sounds too…normal for someone like you."

"So everyone always says. Call me Johnny." (2)

* * *

"…and basically what I'm tryin' to say is that, well," Pyro paused to knock back the remains of his 8th beer of the night, "you're a mutant with no visible manifestation of your ability, right?" John paused again to allow Wanda to nod her agreement, "So the question is: Why are you a Goth?" The fire manipulator grinned as if he had unravelled the secrets of the universe. 

Having sort-of gotten her head around the thickness of John's accent, Wanda was able to get the gist of what it was that he was saying. She raised an eyebrow as if to say 'What the fuck?'

"What kind of question is that?"

"A simple one. Why are you a Goth?"

Wanda was still wondering what type of reasoning connected being a Goth to being a mutant. "Why exactly are you asking this question?"

"Well," pause, "you," he pointed at Wanda, and almost lost his precarious balance on the edge of his stool, "are a mutant, yes? And mutants are considered as different from society. People like Toady from your Brotherhood and the fuzzy bloke with the X-men, they appear different from everyone else. They're pushed apart from it because their mutations affect the way they look." John paused to flag down the barman to get another beer for Wanda and himself. "And I think, on some level, you envy 'em that. You believe that we should be an accepted part of the community, be able to walk around proud about our differences and all that shite and if you had something like a tail or wings or scales you would show that off and not be afraid. But you can't because you look like a human. And that pisses you of somewhat.

"So what can you do? You aren't an obvious part of the outcast society you were born into. You could slip into the crowd. Not be noticed. Be safe and live a normal life. But you don't want that. You want to be an outcast like your kind; you want to show some kind of solidarity with 'em. So you go Goth. And you become an outcast by choice.

"Have I hit the mark there Sheila? Or have I completely overanalysed it and you just like the pretty fashion?"

John looked her in the eye and gave her a cynical little smile that made her doubt he was really drunk at all.

Wanda was silent. He'd bought up some pretty good arguments and they made a lot of sense. When she'd been in the institution, everything been the same. The same four white walls, the same hospital clothes the same drugged, blank looks on all the patients. All the staff had treated her with the same care, like she was made of thin glass; that she would topple and shatter at the slightest provocation. There was no sense of individuality…there were no _people_ there, only patients.

And then she got out, out into the real world where not everything was white, where there was colour and choice and _self_.

Even in the institution, she'd never belonged. The orderlies had been wary of her in a way that they would never be of the other patients. She had been under so much scrutiny, and now she was out and she wasn't being watched all the time. She was free and she loved it, especially being able to slip away whenever she wanted to, to just to become one of the crowd, just to be someone else if she so chose. Meeting Toad had changed this.

She hated him, no doubt about that. She hated his mannerisms, his speech and especially his little names for her. He was a mutant like her like her, and that was about all that they shared. She could slip away, hide, but he could not. He was obviously different, hated and feared by society because he was so abnormal. The way he was treated, him and the others like him, sickened her, angered her. She couldn't let them be alone.

Ever since the institution, she had started to hate. When her medication had worn off, when her powers weren't blocked, when her mind wasn't stuck in that haze that blocked all memory and free thought, she began to hate even more. When she learned what Humans were doing to her people, her hate was all-consuming.

As she changed inside, her appearance changed with it. Colours and clothes designed to fit in were discarded and replaced for ones that screamed for attention, forced people to take notice. If her people (God, she sounded like Moses. Then again, she'd never been one for the whole Jewish history so she let the comparison slide) were meant to be apart then she would not hide.

"I've never really thought about it like that before. But now that I do," she shrugged and shook her head helplessly, "you make a good point." John kept silent, staring at her. His eyes, those _eyes_, were boring deep past all her carefully created defences, laying all of her motivations bare before him. Haw could he know so much when he hardly knew her? "Yes, damn you. You're right. How the fuck did you get inside my head? How do you fucking **know** me?"

John merely grinned at her and took a drink from his bottle. "Simple application of me own _modus operandi_ to someone else's situation. The way I look at it, you're just a Gothy, female, non-Australian version of me. But everyone always says I'm crazy, so what do I know?"

Wanda watched as John drank the last of his drink, set the bottle down on the bar-top and looked around. He could obviously not find what he was looking for because he frowned, then shrugged and dug into a pocket pulling out a white wallet with various pink, yellow and black splodges on it, followed by a folded piece of paper. John looked at it curiously but couldn't be bothered with the effort and threw the paper away. John paid for the drinks as Wanda drank down the last of her beer.

She'd barely put the bottle down and John had grabbed her hand and was pulling her across the club towards the exit. In seconds they were out in the street and John still hadn't let go of her hand. She tried to pull out of his grasp but his other hand was on her cheek and he was kissing her and, Oh God, it was wonderful.

Lord only knew how long they stayed like that, but soon it started to rain. John pulled back, grinned at her and then let go, spinning around in circles in the rain with his face upturned.

* * *

"Fuckin' 'ell luv. Didya pour yourself into these things or somethin'?" 

"Shut up and take your shirt off flameboy."

"Yes ma'am."

* * *

St John is fairly certain that he's having an out of body experience. That certainly would explain why he's woken up to a blinding headache and a warm body pressed into his side. This theory is dismissed moments later when he opens his eyes and realises that, no, his hair was never that colour – except for that one time with Remy and the hair dye – but since the surroundings St John has woken up to are as unfamiliar to him as the person next to him, he can rule out an out of body experience accompanied by kleptomaniac Cajuns with bottles of hair colour colouration. 

So that leaves St John with only one explanation as to the headache and the body, which in honesty kind of disappoints him – he's never had an out of body experience before. Ah well, there's time for everything he supposes. Now to the task at hand – finding out who the bleedin' hell it is cuddled up next to him.

Her (and St John is fairly sure it is a woman, because if it isn't then he's broken one of his cardinal rules – not to sleep with anyone with man-boobs) face is dug into that little gap between his armpit and the pillow, so facial recognition is sort of out of the question. It is at this moment that St John realises that, no, he's never been all that good at all that detective work. All right then, what would Remy do?

Nick her wallet then bugger off, laughing into the sunset. Or sunrise. Whatever.

Petey! Pete would be able to work it out. Right then – think like Pete. Shite, Pete would know who he slept with in the first place. No-one would sleep with the furball unless they were paid…or completely nuts, so he was out and the Bossman, well, John prefers to think that he has never had sex because if a man that utterly crackers had kids, St John fears for the very fabric of reality. (3)

Wait a sec, the Bossman does have kids. The fast one with the nice arse and the girl out of the crazy-house with the … red on black hair.

Red on black hair.

Like the girl in the bar last night (because somehow St John knows that yes, it was last night).

Like the girl next to him right now.

Probably not a coincidence St John decides, although these gothy types are known for all looking the same. Which meant that he's slept with the boss's daughter. Remy said once that that there's a clause in the contract that expressly forbids just that but St John just supposes that that is just for Remy's, manwhore that he is.

St John shuffles himself backwards slightly so that his head rests on the headboard, his neck at what should be an uncomfortable angle, but he rather enjoys it. As a result, Wanda (who he is now identifying as his bedmate, despite being slightly less that absolutely positively certain that it is her) is now tucked into his side, an arm slung across his stomach.

St John smirks, hoping you're all following this (because he knows that you're out there, but don't worry he won't tell anyone), and wondering what'll happen first – Wanda waking, or the intrusion of the fast brother with the nice arse.

Ah well, St John figures that, whatever happens, it'll be eventful. And eventful is, after all, what St John lives for.

* * *

(1) Different fishes produce different effects when slapage is involved. I won't go into depth on the subject, just say that a haddock gives an effect somewhere inbetween that of a tuna and a Pollock – mild stunnage but no major loss of function. 

(2)ALL Jonda fics contain at least one reference to John being called St John and how normal a name 'John' is and then there's the Sinjun explanation bit and quite frankly, I couldn't be bothered so I dropped it. End of.

(3)House of M reference

A/N: My thanks to LithiumAddict for the awesome beta job and for putting up with my little problems.

One love peeps.


End file.
